Raul Alfonsin

Raul Ricardo Alfonsin (12 March 1927-31 March 2009) was President of Argentina from 10 December 1983 to 8 July 1989, succeeding Reynaldo Bignone and preceding Carlos Menem. He was a member of the liberal Radical Civic Union party.

Biography
Raul Ricardo Alfonsin was born in Chascomus, Buenos Aires, Argentina on 12 March 1927, the son of a father of Galician and German descent and a mother of Welsh descent. He joined the Radical Civic Union in 1945, and he became a lawyer and a member of the Chamber of Deputies during two brief periods of civilian rule. He became leader of the UCR in 1981, and he became an opponent of the military dictatorship and the Falklands War. Alfonsin was elected President of Argentina in 1983, and he stabilized his country's democracy; several coups against him failed, owing to a public aversion to a return to authoritarian rule. Alfonsin lost re-election to his Justicialist Party opponent Carlos Menem in 1989 due to his failure to lead Argentina to economic success, and he resigned five months before Menem was due to take over, leaving the economy in a state of near-collapse. He died in Buenos Aires in 2009.